Friday, June 1, 2012

Friend's Five with Alison Strobel: Five Books That Have Impacted My Life

It's a pleasure to have the lovely Alison Strobel here sharing with us her most influential books. I've reviewed some of Alison's books and she's been a feature author here in February.

So let's take a look at Alison's list of five books that have impacted her life...

Five Books That Have Impacted My Life

Alison Strobel

Douglas Coupland's Microserfs - Great book, first off, but also influential in my style as a writer.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - the first classic I ever read for fun. Grabbed me and gave me a new appreciation for quality writing, as well as inspiring me to a higher level of my own writing.

Lisa Samson's Women's Intuition - The first women's fiction novel I ever read. Until then, I had no idea the genre existed. My editor sent it to me when I signed my first contract, and it was a huge light bulb moment for me. "THIS is what I want to write!! I didn't know I could do that! I thought all books written for women had to have a romance in the plot!"

John Grisham's The Street Lawyer - Not necessarily the most quality writing, but it really changed my view of the homeless and the poor.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - Totally genre-defying, compelling, fascinating, and entirely engrossing. It's impressive when you can keep a reader's attention for over 800 pages, and even more impressive when you can keep them coming back for more books that are just as long (if not longer). A great study in writing for the masses and keeping the characters in a series fresh. (I don't necessarily recommend this book to people, though. It has some very steamy scenes. If you can skip them when you come to them, though, then the book is phenomenal.)

About Alison Strobel

Alison is the author of six contemporary Christian fiction novels. You can find out more about her and her books at http://alisonstrobel.com